Amph What was the last movie you saw? (Ver. 2)

Nonsense.
Editing 2001: A Space Odyssey to try to force people who don't appreciate it for what it is is not only pointless, it's disrespectful to the artists who created it.
I know, let's edit Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment novel to make it more appealing to the YA audience or better yet, the evangelical branch of society.
Beethoven's 9th Symphony is too long and boring you say, let's chop that up and serve it to the masses, McDonald's style, consisting of the Ode to Joy theme only.
Picasso's Guernica too much for ya? Better chop that picture up.

 

Deadpool 2 (2018) - Plot; Mercenary Wade Wilson (AKA Deadpool) attempts to form a team to counter a threat that may not be exactly what it appears.

Like many, I went into the original Deadpool w/little to no history w/the character, but that was the least of the reasons the film felt fresh to me. In the often cookie cutter PG-13 world of the modern comic book movie, Deadpool was an R-rated action/comedy (emphasis on, well, both) that didn't pull any punches. Coming out in the vacuum that is February, it was a surprise smash hit, raking in big bucks and getting praise from audiences and critics alike. W/o that element of surprise, could a sequel equal or surpass the original? Kinda. Maybe. I'm not sure.

Sitting here in the afterglow, it's tough for me to say whether or not I feel DP2 is better than first film. I'm more confident in my feeling that it least matches the original, though it's not a beat for beat match. In some areas I think it nudges ahead. Others it lags a bit. But the sum totals are roughly the same. I think. Again, afterglow. The cast all do a nice job, w/newcomers Zazie Beets, Julian Dennison and Josh Brolin each bringing w/them a key to the film's success. The MVP is of course Ryan Reynolds, who once again holds court as the "Merc w/a mouth".

Humor aside--and the film has a lot of it--what helps DP2 really stick the landing is that beneath the off-color humor and graphic violence beats a heart. The central theme here is family, and it manages to weave that in w/o ever becoming maudlin.

I don't know that I'd call it a better film, but in terms of pure entertainment, I'd rank DP2 ahead of the Summer's other big comic book film, Infinity War. - 7.5/10

 

As I say - it's an immersive experience . Audiences are jaded by space travel now , but a major point of 2001 is in expressing the grandeur and majesty of space travel , the wonder of it . This is what cinema can do , it's a grand journey and when the sights are this magnificent I'm in no hurry .
There's enough movies which do the "This happens , then that happens " routine .

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Saw two movies on Sunday. First up was Book Club - extremely funny and I was surprised to discover some rather young people in the crowd. These girls still have terrific comedic timing, especially Candace Bergen.
Next was Pay the Ghost. I'm not much of a Nicolas Cage fan, but I received this soundtrack for review some time ago and the storyline was intriguing - every year at around Halloween in NYC, a large number of kids go missing and most of those kids aren't found. But for some, a year later, their parents are seeing signs of them...only for a year. The end left a little to be desired, but the film had you on the edge of your seat throughout most of it.

 

It's an interesting debate, this whole thing about editing an artwork, ie. film. I mean, sometimes I'll rent a movie I know my mom would like a lot, but I know there are a couple of scenes that, for whatever reason, sexual content, graphic violence or something and so I'll watch it with her and then skip those scenes. Am I disrespecting the art and the artist's intention? Yeah, I reckon and there's no way I'd watch a film that way, but it seems weird to make my mother miss out entirely just because of a five minute scene I can skip. I reckon it's the same with kids, right? And then there's the fact that the majority of movies get willfully signed over to television, where they're edited in some pretty ridiculous ways. I mean, the artist behind the film made a deal with a studio or distribution company that doubtless included television rights. The artist, in that case, knew the film would be edited, but then the residuals or whatever probably make that easier to bear. Then there's the Jaws television version, for instance, which usually excises a few profanities, but often, just to complicate matters, actually adds a few scenes. What about that? (I prefer the theatrical version to the television version myself).

Anyway, I don't watch movies on television or edited typically, in the same way that I don't listen to the "clean" versions of music albums. But that's another interesting twist, isn't it? Some genuine hip-hop artist, for example, creates a true artwork that carries his or her true artistic vision, but then also releases a "clean" version? Hard to believe anything but money motivates that decision. But, anyway, while I'm averse to those kind of things personally, I'll sometimes do a little judicious on the fly "editing" while watching with family members. Maybe they're not getting the full experience the artist intended and their experience is lesser and the effect is lesser for that, but they're getting more than they would have if they'd skipped the thing entirely. Of course, I think there's a difference in editing for content and editing because, for instance, you disagree with the filmmaker on the film's pacing. That's, I think, more of an intrusion onto the artist's vision than, say, muting a line here or there to avoid profanity that might shock the parents or the kids.

Glenroy Bros., No. 2 (1894) – William K.L. Dickson, William Heise

I think this is supposed to be a comedic routine in which two guys incompetently box with each other, but I’m kind of at a loss as to what part of it exactly is supposed to be the funny part. People who think comedy is stupid now could stand to take a look at this. 0 stars.

tl;dr – comedy (?) short hardly registers. 0 stars.

Now, it's become a subject for comedy; vicious bloodsport turned into "innocent" fun. @Ramza will humanity's artistic atrocities never cease?

 

The Raid and The Raid 2. A couple of Indonesian martial arts films. Some of the best fight choreography I've ever seen.

 

47 Ronin (2013) Meh. It tries too hard to be epic. All style and no substance. And are we so backwards that we need Keanu Reeves in an all-Asian cast to make it accessible?

 

This is a thing I now know about. I guess there's some value in that.

 

From the director of Body of Evidence and The Little Vampire!

Fun fact; The title on Cage's copy of the script read Pay the Bills. I kid! I kid!

It is sad to see Cage stuck in this direct to video, check grabbing rut. @ least he occasionally brings his A-game to these B-movies, unlike, say, fellow fallen star/direct to video actor Bruce Willis, who delivers his lines these days w/all the life of a morgue after closing time.

Of the two recentish anachronistic takes on the 47 Ronin tale, I give a slight edge to Last Knights (which merely takes the very basic premise and transports it to a more Westernized--though multi-ethnic--fantasy--though not hocus pocus magic/dragons/creatures--setting). Neither are what I'd call great, or even good, but the efforts are there, allowing them to at least (appropriately) fail w/honor.

 

Just saw Tully. Hard to watch at points. One of the most real depictions of parenting I've seen in awhile. Charlize Theron is great in it, and always nice to see Ron Livingston again. Not sure how I feel about some of the story choices,

 

Although I'm not even sure what you mean by describing him with such a pejorative label, Stanley Kubrick was not a monster.
He was obsessive, unrelenting, and a perfectionist. But by most accounts by those who knew him, he was also very sensitive, thoughtful and a true genius. People who worked with him have described how caring he was if someone were to become ill or have personal problems, for example.

Kubrick was able to gain control of nearly every aspect of the film making process in order to ensure that his works would not be mangled and meddled with by studio execs and so forth. He was involved at every level from story, production design, music, cinematography, casting, rewrites, promotion, even occasionally operating the camera himself etc...

He certainly demanded a lot of the people who worked with him and he wasn't necessarily "easy" to work with for certain actors, but he demanded the same level of dedication from himself.

Whatever your intentions are, it seems rather harsh and unfair to label him a monster. He's dead, after all, and the world of cinema has been bereft of much brilliance due to that fact.

 

Kubrick's suppression and secrecy regarding unused footage is known to me, but I've yet to read much about him actually destroying footage. By all accounts he was somewhat of a hoarder when it came to such things. Collecting, cataloguing and saving absolutely everything. They even have notes and diaries from him explaining how his various pets, notably the cats, should be cared for and treated when he was away from home. Down to how many laps a certain cat tended to need from her water bowl lol.
Did he really destroy all of his outtakes and unused footage?

And remember, Stanley did allow Ridley Scott to use some of his helicopter footage from the opening of The Shining at the end of Bladerunner, so long as the yellow Volkswagon was not seen. And I believe Ridley Scott said Stanley gave him countless hours of footage to sort through for just the short shot at the end of the Bladerunner theatrical cut.
I shall have to research your claim that SK rampantly destroyed footage willy nilly, unless you would like to provide the evidence yourself.

And I do see your point regarding the desire to see the outtakes/deleted scenes etc... I love bts documentaries and features, and would love to see more of that from SK's filmography. The Shining bts does include a fascinating documentary filmed by Kubrick's daughter during production. It is quite revealing.

I do, however, respect the artist's choice to not have these materials released. I remember reading about how Johannes Brahms threw the entire manuscript of a symphony he composed into the fireplace, only to start over from scratch. Musicians and musicologists are of course heartbroken that he chose to do that, but it was Brahm's prerogative to do so. Beethoven manuscripts are notoriously messy, filled with sometimes incomprehensible scribbles, complete sections inked out and made illegible. As fascinating as it might be to see those sketches, the final product should stand on its own, if you know what I mean.

And I figured you were probably joking about the whole monster thing, I was just curious why someone so interested in 2001 in the first place might say such a thing lol.

 

The Interrupted Journey 1949 A writer (John) played by Richard Todd is eloping with his mistress to a new life on the south coast of England, but on the way to catch their train he becomes increasingly paranoid that they're being followed. When they board the train he spots his would be followers again and gets cold feet so pulls the emergency cord as the train is passing close to his home, leaving his mistress on the train he runs across the fields and back to his wife. But as he arrives home a train coming in the opposite direction collides with his train, he and wife rush to the crash site to help, where he finds his mistress dead in the wreckage.

What follows is quite a low budget Hitchcock typre adventure of a wronged man on the run.

The authorities are now on the hunt for whoever pulled the cord and caused the crash. A railway crash investigator visits John and his wife and thinks he was in fact on the train because they found his name and address in his mistresses diary, yet no companion was with found with her in the carriage. To top things off they find a detectives notebook, who was hired by his mistresses husband, who both also died in the crash and its them who was following the couple. But theres no concrete evdience that John was on the train yet, but his wife suspects he was.

Like the detective in Dial M For Murder hes constantly on his case, trying to get a confession out of John.

John has to come clean with his wife about his intentions, but in typical British movie tradition they soon make up. Things take a twist when its revealed his mistress was actually shot before the crash and suspicion falls on him as the murderer. Even more so when a gun is found hidden in his garden pond. He goes on the run to clear his name before taking refuge in the hotel on the south coast he'd booked under an alias with his mistress. But someone with his alias is already there leading to a huge plot twist of Dallas like proportions where its revealed it was some kind of weird dream or premonition.

I really enjoyed this to a point, low budget with it confined to a few settings within the suspects house and village. The camera work, use of shadows and angles are excellent, a bit like The Third Man. Its got a Hitchcock feel to the story too, but the point at which I stopped enjoying this was the twist at the end as its revealed to have not happened at all and that time and effort invested in the film seems wasted as the last 5 minutes play out.

 

But "the story"? Who/what decides what "the story" is? The story is not restricted to unambiguous causality depicted on screen or referred to in order for the plot to make linear sense. In fact what @Dagobahsystem says at the top of this page goes for me. The movie is the story. The story is not something that exists in spite of the edited movie.

 

I liked Last Knights much better than 47 Ronin. It was more story and less spectacle, better writing for deeper characters. Not that they were really deep, but at least they were 2d, as opposed to the 1d ronin.

 

@Sarge Yeah, skimming over the reviews I wrote @ IMDb, I called attention to Last Knight putting a relatively stronger focus on story/character over spectacle.

 

3 Billboards .

I like this sort of humor , some good un-p.c. stuff , and all the actors are doing good work , especially Sam Rockwell who seems to have made a lot of duds the last few years .

But I didn't really believe in the story or the events that happened in it , so I suppose I could say that the humour worked but the drama didn't .

 

Men in Black 3

 

Oblivion (2013)

This is a real slick SF/adventure set on a nearly abandoned, mostly uninhabitable Earth. Set in the year 2077, if I recall. Jack Harper, played by Tom Cruise, is a maintenance tech, pilot, soldier, left with a female partner to ensure Earth's refugee population on Titan continues to get the resources they need. That's the basic jist of the setup.

This was my second viewing after at least four years and the film really holds up visually and editing wise. The story hinges on a few major plot twists, so the first viewing was better for me, but I still found myself catching my breath and feeling suspense the second time.

The actors do a fine job, all of them. Good cast. The cinematography is often breathtaking.
I would recommend seeing Oblivion if you haven't already, and if you are a fan of SF mixed with intense action sequences, including many scenes of pilots flying spacecraft that are reminiscent of TFA, or vice versa, as it were.

 

Pacific Rim Uprising. Surprising great considering it was panned by many. Sure, it's not on par or superior to the original but for a sequel, I thought it did its job and I enjoyed the action